History is fragmented, recurring interventions are not connected and critical parts are unavailable when needed.
OTILA CMMS solution
Structure a CMMS: from asset register to reliability management
Build a useful asset hierarchy, criticality-based plans and a work order capturing time, parts, cause and evidence.
For: Maintenance, industrial, asset, fleet, service, finance and IT leadersWhat to clarify before discussing a solution
Which minimum data must be reliable to move from emergency response to prepared, measurable maintenance?
The answer does not lie in an isolated feature: it is built by connecting rules, actors, data and evidence.A criticality-prioritised CMMS foundation, clearly connecting request, planning, execution, inventory and analysis.
Four decisions to make before configuration
These decisions make the scope testable and prevent structural choices from being discovered during the project.
Define the hierarchy and analysis level
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Classify assets by operational criticality
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Standardise failure and closure reasons
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Connect parts, skills and intervention windows
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
A readable end-to-end flow
Scope is not a list of modules. It is a chain of events, ownership and decisions.
1Assets and criticality
2Requests and priorities
3Preventive work and meters
4Field work orders
5Parts, cost and reliability
In the first scoping
- One representative flow and its useful variants
- Authoritative events and minimum data
- Roles, decisions and escalation times
- Acceptance criteria and baseline measurement
To sequence in waves
- Additional sites, activities or populations
- Rare variants that do not condition the pilot
- Automations whose rule is not yet stable
- Advanced dashboards after source reliability
To decide explicitly
- Define the hierarchy and analysis level
- Classify assets by operational criticality
- Standardise failure and closure reasons
- Connect parts, skills and intervention windows
From direction to measured improvement
- 1Navigator
- 2Personalised review
- 3Scoping workshop
- 4Wave-based deployment
- 5KPI measurement
Each stage produces a decision or evidence reusable in the next. Deployment remains business-led and verifiable.
Measure to decide, not to fill a dashboard
Every KPI needs a definition, a source, a cadence and an associated decision.
KPIFormulaSourceDecision
MTBFOperating time ÷ number of failuresMeters, incidents and downtimePrioritise assets requiring reliability work
MTTRTotal repair time ÷ corrective interventionsWork orders, time and closuresAct on diagnosis, parts and preparation
Asset availabilityAvailable time ÷ required timeCalendars, downtime and metersArbitrate preventive work, capacity and renewal
Preventive work sharePreventive hours ÷ total maintenance hoursPlans, work orders and timeRebalance planned maintenance and emergencies
06 · Business scenario
Start with assets that condition service
- Situation
- An industrial, property or fleet asset base is known, but its history does not support anticipation or comparison of maintenance decisions.
- Approach
- The pilot selects critical assets, improves their structure, turns interventions into complete work orders and establishes an MTBF–MTTR–availability routine.
- Target outcome
- Maintenance gains usable history and can justify priorities, parts and downtime windows.
Useful answers before the first discussion
01Where should we start in practical terms?
Choose a representative scope spanning “Assets and criticality” and “Requests and priorities”, then document one normal case and one frequent exception. The first flow should be important enough to matter but contained enough to observe end to end.
02Do all existing systems need replacing?
No. Scoping starts with decisions, authoritative events and ownership. It then determines what should be retained, integrated, replaced or simply better governed, wave by wave.
03What data should be prepared before a workshop?
Prepare a few real cases, the volumes shaping the operation, the main variance reasons and the sources used to measure MTBF. The quality of examples matters more than the quantity of documents.
04How should the right pilot scope be chosen?
Choose a scope with an available owner, accessible data, a meaningful exception and a measurable outcome. Avoid both an overly simple case that proves nothing and an overly broad scope that dilutes learning.
05How can scope changes during the project be limited?
Make assumptions, interfaces, variants, exceptions and acceptance criteria explicit. Every new request can then be classified: essential to the wave, suitable for a later wave, or outside the objective. Discussion focuses on impact rather than intuition.
Next step
Turn this guide into a personalised review
Complete Navigator to position your context, then use the review as the starting point for a scoping workshop.
- 1Navigator
- 2Personalised review
- 3Scoping workshop
- 4Wave-based deployment
- 5KPI measurement
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